


Sometimes Getting Hurt is a Good Thing

by viviegirl05



Series: Wooing Barry [7]
Category: The Flash
Genre: Injured Barry, Len and Mick are good people?, Major Character Injury, Multi, Oblivious Barry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-19 00:11:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10628097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viviegirl05/pseuds/viviegirl05
Summary: After Barry's talk with Oliver, a new meta shows up. Barry gets seriously beat up and ends up at STAR Labs. Len and Mick show up to fawn all over him and it confuses the heck out of Caitlin and Cisco. When Iris shows up to add her thoughts on the situation, they all come to the same conclusion about Leonard Smart and Mick Rory.*told from Caitlin and Cisco's perspective*





	

After his talk with Oliver, Barry had some serious thinking and reflecting to do. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance before he got a call from Cisco that there was a meta on the loose causing havoc two blocks from the CCPD- and headed that way from the looks of it.

The meta, who Cisco oh-so-creatively named “Magneto,” could manipulate metal. He was actually being kind of creative about it- locating small metal objects and making them explode like grenades. Of course, when the Flash showed up he started using the more direct attack style of hurling large metal objects at the hero. While Barry managed to halt Magneto’s progress towards the CCPD, the ensuing battle still took almost two hours before he succeeded in knocking the meta out.

When Barry stumbled into STAR Labs, he barely made it to the bed in the medical room before he collapsed. His entire body hurt. When Cisco and Caitlin helped him (by doing 95% of the work) to take off the suit, it became obvious why he was in so much pain. His whole body was basically one giant black and blue bruise, with hints of green in the few lighter patches. Even his face was hit- he had a large bruise on his right temple that spread to his eye, giving him a black eye, and covered about a third of his forehead before disappearing beneath his hair. There was another bruise, deep purple and puffy with green around the edges, covering the left side of his chin, spreading a bit across his cheek, over his split lip, and worryingly onto the soft flesh under his jaw.

Caitlin confirmed that he had a concussion and a bit of internal bleeding, but that was mostly healed by the time they were done doing scans. X-rays revealed six broken ribs, two fractured ribs, a hairline fracture across his sternum, fractures to his left tibia and femur, a broken right foot, a three broken fingers, a broken right humerus, and a fractured collar bone.

He was going to need at least a few days to heal. Thankfully it was a Friday, which he had off, and he wasn’t scheduled to come in to the CCPD until Monday- he wasn’t even on call. Captain Singh was rewarding him by giving him the weekend off; he had been working very hard lately, and he had rushed through a bunch of tests on Wednesday that quickly wrapped up a big mob case- there was something of a turf war going on that they desperately needed to put a stop to before innocent civilians got involved.

Caitlin was setting his broken foot in a brace- the last bandage that needed to be applied- when Leonard Snart and Mick Rory burst into the cortex in full Captain Cold and Heatwave gear.

“Where is he?” Snart demanded.

“Uh…” Cisco looked at them, stunned by their sudden arrival. His eyes glancing in the direction of the medical room was enough for the villains to know where to go.

“Barry!” Snart cried upon entering the room, Rory hot on his heels.

“Please tell us it’s not as bad as it looks,” Rory pled.

Since when did Mick Rory, pyromaniac and supervillain, plead?

After a brief stunned pause, Caitlin responded, “it’s…pretty bad.”

Barry was laid up on the bed in only his boxers, right upper arm and entire left leg in medical braces, right foot in a brace, cold packs on his ribs to soothe his broken ribs, and a nasal cannula. He was hooked up to a couple of monitors and an IV, which was steadily feeding him fluids and glucose.

“Hey guys,” Barry attempted to smile at them but failed as his swollen lip and inflamed jaw flared with pain.

“Barry…” Snart breathed, stepping up to his side and moving to take his hand but pausing at the sight of the two broken fingers in braces. Rory stood at his other side, surveying the damage with a worried expression.

“Please say that he got it worse than you,” Rory said.

“He’s…in Iron Heights, it doesn’t matter now.”

“A lot of bad things can happen to a guy in prison,” Snart muttered darkly, seemingly talking to himself, already scheming.

“Len…” Barry tried to lift his hand to touch Len, but barely made it a few inches before the pain became too great now that the adrenalin had worn off.

“Easy, Doll.”

“Don’t hurt yourself worse,” Snart’s attention was successfully redirected to focus solely on Barry. “What are his injuries?” Snart said, glancing over at Caitlin, who stood frozen at the foot of the bed.

“Doc,” Rory spoke sharply when Caitlin didn’t respond immediately. Caitlin jerked, coming back to her senses as she listed off his injuries.

“God, Scarlet...” Snart breathed when she was done, biting his lip and looking at Barry with a profound look of concern, fluttering his hands as he searched for a way to comfort him without causing him any more pain.

“His bones should be fully healed in a few hours,” Caitlin said cautiously. “He can probably go home tonight if he promises to be careful and take it easy for the weekend- no heavy lifting, plenty of food and water, lots of rest...”

“He’ll take it easy,” Snart promised, voice leaving no room for doubt.

“Sounds like a good weekend for that Tolkien marathon we talked about,” Rory rumbled, giving Barry a small smile.

“All the _Hobbit_ movies AND all the _Lord of the Rings_ movies? Extended edition?” Barry looked hopeful.

“You got it,” Rory promised.

“And all the food you can eat- anything you want,” Snart promised, giving a small, fond smile.

Barry beamed at them the best he could, already having a little more success than he had had a few minutes prior. It still looked pained though. Just then Cisco walked in with a few calorie bars and a jug of water with a strange contraption of straws. It was so Barry could drink while lying down and not spill water everywhere, they realized.

“Hey,” Cisco started nervously, glancing at Start and Rory before refocusing on Barry. “I know you probably want to get some sleep, but you should really eat something first.”

“Thanks Cisco, that’s probably a good idea,” Barry said weakly, already sounding tired.

When Cisco moved forward, toward Barry, Rory stepped in his way, taking the water and calorie bars from his hands.

“We’ll take care of that,” Snart said as Rory returned to Barry’s side, both of them looking at Barry with care and concern.

“Riiiight…” Cisco drew out the word, sharing a look with Caitlin.

“We’ll just…be out there if you need us…” Cisco said.

“Make sure Barry takes his time, small bites and sips. We don’t want him choking because he’s lying down like that.” Caitlin instructed worriedly.

“Got it,” Snart nodded, carefully breaking off a small, bite-sized piece of a calorie bar and gently feeding it to Barry.

Caitlin and Cisco looked at each other.

“Just…call me if anything happens or changes…” Caitlin said, walking towards the door with Cisco, glancing back at the trio with confusion. Snart and Rory were hovering over Barry looking worried, Rory gently brushing back Barry’s hair as Snart held the straw to his lips so he could sip at the water.

***

“What the hell?” Cisco hissed as soon as they were out of earshot.

“I don’t know,” Caitlin replied, biting her lip and looking back at the medical room with worry in her eyes. They could see through the glass walls that Snart and Rory were still fawning over Barry, gently draping their coats over the speedster to keep him warm as he chewed on a bite of calorie bar one of them had fed him.

“Can we seriously trust them not to hurt Barry? Come on Caitlin, they’re _supervillains_. They’ve tried to kill Barry on _numerous_ occasions! Do can we honestly trust them not to hurt Barry when he’s hurt like this?”

“I don’t know,” Caitlin repeated. “I mean, they look pretty worried…and they’re taking care of him now…it seems like they actually… _care_ … about Barry.”

“Well…” Cisco started, looking over at the medical room too and watching Mick Rory fluff the Flash’s pillow. ”I guess they’re being…helpful…right now…. but that doesn’t mean they won’t hurt him as soon as our backs are turned!”

They turned to the entrance of the cortex when they heard rapid footsteps coming from the hall.

“Where is he?!” Iris panted as the skidded to a stop. “Where’s Barry?! Is he ok?!!”

“Iris, Barry is…fine…relatively speaking,” Caitlin said, looking over at Barry again. Iris followed her line of sight and witnessed Mick Rory gently feeding Barry a bite of a calorie bar while Leonard Snart stood by with a jug of water and Cisco’s special Barry-can’t-sit-up straw.

“What are Len and Mick doing here?”

“Len and Mick?! Are you seriously calling them that now too?” Cisco accused incredulously.

“Well, yeah, I mean,” Iris huffed a sigh, tossing her hair over her shoulder and propping one hand on her hip. “I’ve been watching Barry since we found out about him living with Captain Cold and Heatwave, and honestly he seems happier than I’ve seen since before he was struck by lightning. He’s been happier for weeks now- probably ever since this whole thing with Len and Mick started. And I’ve done some research, excluding that first time, when Len and Mick forced Barry to fight them both – “

“You mean when they _kidnapped Caitlin and strapped her to a bomb_?” Cisco said.

“Yeah, other than that time, they’ve never actually tried to kill him, or even seriously injure him from the looks of it. I mean, when he first fought Len on the train, Len could have killed him.”

“Yeah, but we showed up with and saved him,” Caitlin frowned.

“With a vacuum cleaner,” Iris said pointedly.

“Cold didn’t know that,” Cisco looked affronted.

“Cisco, a guy like Len, he knows weapons. I seriously doubt he didn’t know it was a vacuum cleaner.”

Cisco sputtered.

“Anyway, Len _could_ have killed the Flash, but he didn’t. He aimed for Barry’s stomach instead of his head and stood around talking long enough for you to show up and save him. If he had wanted to kill Barry, he would have.”

“I guess you have a point…” Caitlin worried her lip, looking over at Barry again.

“And other than that thing where they forced the Flash to fight them both in public, they’ve never gone for a serious hit.” Iris went on, “ I hacked into my dad’s computer and looked up the footage from all their fights- they always aimed for a limb or to the side of Barry, never at him directly, or they made it really obvious what they were about to do and gave him plenty of time to get out of the way. They always waited for him to recover from a fall or whatever before they got back into it. And their banter? Honestly, it sounded like flirting to me.”

“Barry said they’re not dating,” Cisco frowned.

“Yeah, but…it’s _Barry_. I mean, I love him to death, but sometimes he’s just so,” Iris gestured with her hands, “you know?”

“Yeah, I guess he is pretty oblivious at times,” Cisco conceded.

“I can’t remember the number of times I’ve lectured him about eating periodically throughout the day, but he constantly forgets to eat and almost passes out,” Caitlin commiserated.

“Ok, so we’ve established that Barry’s a ditz. What does this have to do with trusting Captain Cold and Heatwave?”

“I don’t think they’d hurt Barry,” Iris said. “They haven’t really, truly tried in the past, and for the last however many weeks they’ve actually been taking care of him. Haven’t you noticed? He hasn’t been eating much junk food or fast food- I checked his bank account.”

“You checked his bank account? What are you, stalking him? How did you even access his account?” Cisco wondered.

“I’ve known him since we were six, Cisco. It wasn’t hard to guess his password.” Iris gave him a unimpressed look.

“So he hasn’t been spending money on junk food, what does that have to do with it?” Caitlin asked.

“He hasn’t been spending _any_ money on food, no groceries or anything. I think Mick and Len have been feeding him. For the last month there literally hasn’t been a single food-related charge on Barry’s debit card.”

“He’s been better about remembering to eat throughout the day too,” Caitlin said. “He hasn’t risked hypoglycemia in weeks.”

“Ok, so, he’s healthier on the food front,” Cisco said. “And Snart and Rory haven’t tried to seriously injured him since that first time…and they’re sort of falling all over themselves to take care of him now…” They all looked over at the medical room to see Snart and Rory gently stroking Barry’s hair and holding his hands, watching him with concerned looks as he slept.

“I think…guys, are Snart and Rory actually…good people?” Cisco looked like he couldn’t believe what he was saying.

“When it comes to Barry,” Caitlin started.

“Yeah, they are.” Iris finished.


End file.
